place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a
pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more
clever set of men, than he can do at Boston. I confess that in
this respect I think that but few towns are at present more
fortunately circumstanced than the capital of the Bay State, as
Massachusetts is called, and that very few towns make a better use
of their advantages. Boston has a right to be proud of what it has
done for the world of letters. It is proud; but I have not found
that its pride was carried too far.

Boston is not in itself a fine city, but it is a very pleasant
city. They say that the harbor is very grand and very beautiful.
It certainly is not so fine as that of Portland, in a nautical
point of view, and as certainly it is not as beautiful. It is the
entrance from the sea into Boston of which people say so much; but
I did not think it quite worthy of all I had heard. In such
matters, however, much depends on the peculiar light in which
scenery is seen. An evening light is generally the best for all
landscapes; and I did not see the entrance to Boston harbor by an
evening light. It was not the beauty of the harbor of which I
thought the most, but of the tea which had been sunk there, and of
all that came of that successful speculation. Few towns now
standing have a right to be more proud of their antecedents than
Boston.

But as I have said, it is not specially interesting to the eye;
what new town, or even what simply adult town, can be so? There is
an Atheneum, and a State Hall, and a fashionable street,--Beacon
Street, very like Piccadilly as it runs along the Green Park,--and
there is the Green Park opposite to this Piccadilly, called Boston